slow spring

beauty breather six

{beauty breather: a photographic pause for rest}

Join me in a guided visual meditation - an invitation into noticing the wilderness within and without while making space for the fullness of our humanity. These beauty breathers are collections of my nature photographs, part of Notes From the Wilderness.

• I am in Western Canada and experience four distinct and rather extreme seasons. This cycle is integral to my experience. I acknowledge this frame of reference may not be familiar to everyone yet I hope you will still be able to enter in and feel welcome.

• You can return to each beauty breather as often as you desire. Notice what is the same and different in how you experience the words and images.

• If you’re wanting to slow down but find yourself rushing through, try setting a timer (I really love the Insight Timer app.) Go at whatever pace work for you.

• Meet yourself with kindness and gentleness. Let curiosity lead.

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I could feel the world pressing in on me, like vice grips I’m somehow also tightening on my own flesh and bone. Another heavy snowfall warning rolled in and I felt drawn out into the elements. Spring has the exquisite audacity to express herself in fullness, not confined and restrained - becoming in her time. May I expand into that kind of aliveness too.

inhale

exhale

At first glance it may seem like winter is having a revival but it doesn’t take long to see that this is something entirely different than December’s wonderland. Let’s look a little closer.

inhale

exhale

Three seasons apparently in one. The snow we associate with winter, an autumnal leaf still hanging on and a bud of spring emerging. Can you feel the tension of them existing together? Can you relate to multiple seasons co-existing within you?

inhale… I’m not sure what season I’m in

exhale… perhaps I am found in the confluence of them all

Allow your eyes to settle on the fuzzy catkins just beginning to reveal themselves. Is there a part of you that has been readying to emerge? Will you allow it?

inhale

exhale… permission to emerge when it is time

Over and over, the branches drew me in, like arms stretching themselves outward after a most satisfying slumber. What would it feel like to stretch out your own?

inhale

exhale

Examine the delicate collections of snowflakes, the detail in their congregating. Follow the lines of the icily laden twigs. Notice they are not weighed down with the snow. Perhaps it could feel good to stretch out your own arms again?

inhale… I long to be unburdened

exhale

Let your eyes sink into the evergreen, observing the slow seasonal shift. Settle into the droplets, imagining all you have been carrying on your shoulders melting away. Is there space to ever-so-slowly transition into a fresh season of your own?

inhale

exhale

inhale

exhale…

♡

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For more musing on spring wander over here.